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pterribilis

New Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Can anyone tell me if I will need to modify/upgrade this current setup to achieve 2.8-3.0GHz? In terms of cooling....

Case: Lian-Li PC60+
PSU: Zalman ZM460B-APS
Motherboard: Asus P5QL-E
Processor: Intel Core2 Q8200 (Stock heatsink/fan)
Memory: Corsair Dominator TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB Kit 5-5-5-15
GPU: Sapphire HD4850 512MB
HDD: Western Digital 250GB SATA
ODD: Pioneer 20X DVDRW

I was trying to get an Antec NeoPower but they were all out of stock and I didn't want to get a @$$ppy PSU, and never had experience with anything other than Antec so...I know Zalman makes decent stuff from what I have read here and there..so I took a shot. Hopefully it is an okay PSU, if not I can always swap that out to my other system and buy a better one.

So, the question is...will the PSU power this to the 2.8GHz range or higher and without additional cooling? At the moment without modifying any jumpers/bios settings the system is running at around 32/34C under minimal load (a few web browsers open, a few non gaming applications open (word, excel, powerpoint, etc).
 
I'm not an intel guy so I'm not familiar with what this cpu is capable of overclocking to or how well it scales power wise. I can tell you this, stock coolers are not conducive to much overclocking. You really ought to consider a good aftermarket cpu cooler.

About your psu, it is rather modest and the answer to your question depends on the power draw of everything together in your system, including add in cards, fans, etc. That is the place to start if you are asking if your psu will handle the extra juice draw of overclocking. Take this test:

http://www.antec.outervision.com/.

Overclocking a cpu makes it suck more juice. My AMD X3 cpu draws 95W at stock 2.4ghz and 1.25 volts but about 170 when overclocked to 3.125ghz and 1.375 volts. A potent gfx card also sucks a lot of juice.
 
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Thanks trents for that link.

According to Antec:

System Type: Single Processor
Motherboard: Regular - Desktop
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2333 MHz Yorkfield-4M
Overclocked: 2900 MHz, 1.2 V
CPU Utilization (TDP): 85% TDP
RAM: 2 Sticks DDR2 SDRAM
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4850
Video Type: Single Card
SATA HDD: 1 HDD
DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive: 1 Drive
PCI Network Interface Card: Yes
PCI TV Tuner - Cable: Yes
USB: 2 Devices
Fans
Regular: 1 Fan 80mm; 2 Fans 120mm;
Keyboard and mouse: Yes
System Load: 90 %
Recommended Wattage: 306 Watts

So I pretty much just have to buy a better CPU cooler and all should be groovy. Can you recommend a good one that doesn't make a whole lot of noise? I used to have a swiftech back in the day (i used to overclock my athlon's and durons but that was so long ago I can't remember what I did other than dink around with the memory timings, etc) and it was REAL LOUD..sounded like a fighter jet taking off. The fans inside the case are pretty silent and so is the PSU so I'm hoping to go with the same style. Something under $AUD 100 ?
 
You're socket LGA775, right? Consider this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004

It's a wonderful value right now with the discount and free shipping. Only thing you need to take a good look at is the height of the thing. Your case needs to be at least 8" wide to accommodate these vertical tower coolers that use 120mm fans. Otherwise, you would need to modify the side panel somehow (like I did). This is one of the most efficient coolers on the market. These "core contact exposed heat pipe" types are supposed to be give better heat transfer at the contact point with the cpu face than those whose pipes are embedded in a block. Read the reviews on NewEgg and see what people say about it and see if it would pose any clearance problems for you up and out, say to the ram slots if you use ram with tall heat sinks.
 
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